Monthly Archives: February 2017

Beyond the Boundaries, Memories, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Each Person a Holy Well

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Imbolc                                                                       Anniversary Moon

While writing the pendulum piece yesterday, I began to consider my inner life in a way I hadn’t before. It occurred to me, probably obvious to you, but not to me, that the inner world is timeless. It’s not part of the body (I’m not sure what I mean by this.) and does not participate in the changes of aging. That world, one we each carry within us (or about us, or as us), is quiet relative to the constantly moving, pulsing, buzzing blooming nature of reality beyond it. (Thanks to William James.)

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chalice well, Glastonbury

Perhaps this is what the New Testament means when Jesus says, “The kingdom of God is within you.” Not only is the within timeless, it’s also boundaryless, extending into an infinite realm, not all known, at most partially. That’s not to say it’s static, not at all, just ask your dream life.

This is exciting to me, considering the world within. The weird part, the somewhat new part for me, lies in the metaphysics of the within. As I consider it, feel its reality, my inner world seems separate from the physical realm altogether. I know, in terms of contemporary neuroscience, that this could be challenged; but, in spite of that, this private place seems untethered from both the outer realm and my body and, oddly, my mind.

The mind, in my use of it here, is a tool, a way of managing the interface between my body and my current concerns in the world. It does have a Janus faced quality in that it can look out to the world as the dasein of Heidegger suggests; but, it can also look inward, into my inner world. Using the mind as a point of reference, it becomes a mediator between inside and outside, but, in a manner similar to the inner world, a part of neither.

Janus_as

So, when I say the inner world is not part of my mind, I say that because the mind is the tool I use to know that world, as it is the tool I use to know and interact with the outer world.

Therefore, we can ask, what is the ontological character of the inner world? Does it have being in the way of, say, a rock, a tree, a dog, another person? I don’t know the answer to this question. It is, in the sense of isness, real since it can be perceived as Bishop Berkeley put it, but its isness seems different qualitatively from my body or the world in which it moves and lives and has its being.

This inner world is the homeworld of the imagination, of the interplay between ideas and intuition. It is the realm of memory and the alteration of memory, of the creation of memory. It is the place of fairy tales, of myth, of legend, of gods and goddesses. It can be explored with some difficulty. It often manifests after it has done its own work, throwing up a new way of seeing. In fact, my understanding of it as timeless and spatially infinite is just such a new of way of seeing for me.

Canto 3
Canto 3

I’m not saying this well. What is amazing to me, what is pushing me to explore this idea is the vastness of the inner world and its unique nature for each human being. Maybe for each dog and cat, wombat and shark for all we know. In other words in a room full of people we see them in this familiar world as distinct entities, yes, but still in this world. Yet, each person is a holy well that, like the holy wells of Ireland and Wales, provides entrance to another world, a world sui generis.

So, in fact, that room full of people is not only what it appears to be, but is also a collection of unique worlds, worlds unseen by any eye but each person’s inner eye.

Still exploring this idea, trying to suss it out.

 

 

Aging, Great Wheel, Myth and Story, Third Phase

Swinging

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Imbolc                                                                 Anniversary Moon

I confess the pendulum powering my inner life has begun to move in eccentric ways since the emergence of the Trump. It swings in its plane, as it always has, tick tocking its energy into the engine of my inner world. Yet the rotating sphere of my inner life, which processes around the poles of birth and death, as the earth rotates around its north and south poles, normally keeping me from stasis in a place where time and space have no purchase, seems to have altered.

This is, for me, a dramatic change and one I have not yet learned to accommodate.  The whole circle which the pendulum scribes moves through these points: love, family, nature, writing, reading, travel, dogs, house, mountains, politics, art, science, friends, sleep, body, mind. In its completeness, as its plane touches the ancientrails of my soul/self, I experience those aspects of my inner me that are my unique identity.

Wrinkleberry Lane, North Devon, England
Wrinkleberry Lane, North Devon, England

But now, there is some magnetic pull when the plane of the pendulum finds underneath it the ancientrail of politics. The silver ball wobbles slightly, pulled out of its determined arc across the rotation beneath it. It has, so far, always righted itself, the dynamics of its swing returning it to its usual course, but it feels as if the ancientrail of politics has been altered in some dramatic way, as if its path no longer relates to the world in the ways to which I’m accustomed.

In that place, the place of the political, something new has emerged. It is part fear, a new feeling for me relative to the political; it is part anguish, not new, but intensified; it is part disorientation, definitely new; it is part earthquake, the terra firma of the political moving under my feet, all new feeling. The combination of these changes is trying to alter me, to change the rotation which is, really, my life.

bdesham's mother
bdesham’s mother

In this extended metaphor my life is the rotation of my Self as it processes around the poles. It does not, in other words, move forward or backward, but in a repeating circle which might from the outside look like a spiral moving from Duncan, Oklahoma, where I was born, to that unknown point where, as far as I know, the sphere implodes and the pendulum stills.

How this will affect me, I don’t know.

 

 

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Great Work, Poetry, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

My Holy Scripture

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Imbolc                                                                     Anniversary Moon

The World Is Too Much With Us

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

Commentary on the news, Politics, US History

O. My.

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Imbolc                                                                             Anniversary Moon

It’s been a month plus a little now. Little doubt about the direction of Trump’s administration in general terms: chaos and bluster. As to its direction over the long term? Impossible to tell. Neither markets nor foreign countries like an unpredictable U.S. Nor do I.

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The only reliable impression I have about the future under Trump/Bannon is that it will be heavy weather. Those of us who view communal responsibility as a given, those of us who view the planet as one place important to all, those of us who see government as an instrument of support rather than the enemy, those of us who see taxes as a shared obligation will find much displeasure in that future, as we already have in the short, terrible time that has passed so far.

How much can he do? Unfortunately, far more than any of us would like. The bigger question is whether he can sink our experiment in self-governance. Admittedly, he’s only brought into obvious relief the oligarchic stranglehold that has dominated post-war U.S. policy, but he’s also trying to discredit critical pieces of our checks and balances: the press, the courts, even knowledge itself. If he can strengthen these attacks, then our nation will be in serious trouble.

And, no, we may not finish the struggle, but we are not at liberty to stop either. Tarfon.

 

Mountains, Shadow Mountain

With and Without Hair

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Imbolc                                                                    Anniversary Moon

Triglav Andrejj
Triglav Andrejj

From my growing up and adult years in the Midwest mountains had a rocky, bare faced majesty, perhaps covered in swirling fog or partially covered in new snow, but always jagged and austere. Yes, I’d been to the Smoky’s and driven the Blue Ridge Highway, even seen the Appalachians in Pennsylvania and New York, not to mention the ancient Sawtooths along the North Shore in Minnesota, but somehow they didn’t change my archetypal image of what it meant to be a mountain.

Now, though, having lived in the Rockies for over two years, I know that mountains are diverse, even in the same range. Some are bare and austere like the Tetons, but most of the mountains I encounter on a daily basis have hair, above 8,000 feet lodgepole pine and aspen, below that ponderosa, blue spruce, some oak. Of course, above the tree line, there are no trees, but at the treeline, krummholz trees predominate. They are, as the German word makes clear, stunted and windblown, crooked, bent and twisted.

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Even after some reading and a lot of observation I’ve still not figured out how to tell where one mountain begins and another ends. Of course, this is not a mountain’s problem; it’s a problem of the human need to analyze and dissect. A peak of Black Mountain, for example, is visible through my loft window as I write. I photograph its beautiful changes as the sun rises and posted some of those below. But Conifer Mountain begins somewhere to the south of Black Mountain. They’re connected, joined at the granitic hip, so they’re not really distinct entities, but inventions of the mind.

This move has had many implications for our lives, none more constant and enthralling than this chance to know the mountains.

 

Family, Feelings, Jefferson County, Judaism

Pure Soul

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Imbolc                                                                     New (Anniversary) Moon

rumi

Last Wednesday evening at Beth Evergreen Rich Levine asked what is the sound of a pure soul. Kate gave an answer that resonated with the group and has stayed with me: “When I would walk into the nursery and other sounds were muted, I could hear the susurration of infant’s breathing and moving. That’s pure potential.” Her comment was heartfelt and it moved everyone. It’s beautiful to me to see Kate opening herself up like this.

The framework of mussar, this was an evening, once a month potluck session, provides the opportunity for deep exploration of our inner world, its motivations and its possibilities. It does this through a long tradition of written helps, guides like Mesillat Yesharim, that limn a subtle and very nuanced spiritual psychology gathered from Jewish practice and scripture. Mussar’s purpose is to develop ethical behavior (musar=ethics) through learning middots, or character traits.

I feel lucky that Kate and I have found this together. Mussar gives us a common language for deep matters and a community of other folks who have the same yearnings, the same desire to probe their inner world and grow in their character.

 

 

Feelings, GeekWorld, Judaism, Minnesota, Our Land and Home, Weather +Climate

Oh, well. A pause would have been better.

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Imbolc                                                             New (Anniversary) Moon

Black Mountain barely shows itself in the cloud of snow over it. We’ve had snow since yesterday, winter is back. We’re glad here on Shadow Mountain. This Colorado feint of warm weather in the middle of winter keeps me thinking spring, then the sky turns white.

It’s been one of those days when the adult quotient required exceeded my ability to manage it. When I went out and found the guy from Geowater working on our well-head, installing a product I didn’t want, then found out he’d ordered a $1,000 pressure tank to replace our current one, well, let’s just say I didn’t handle it well. WTF! No, I didn’t think it, I said it. Oops. I had them walk back the work order, pushing the day’s bill down from around $7,000 to $2,000.

Then, they nicked a water line from the boiler and had to call a plumber to fix it. That set things back on the right emotional track. I had to get on my hands and knees, literally, to crawl into the space under our house and apologize. I was hot and said sorry. One of the guys fist bumped me and said thanks. The other guy was not quite so quick to forgive. Still, after I apologized that was his issue.

One of those situations where I wish I’d taken the mussar way and introduced a pause between the match and the fuse. I could have gotten the same result without being hostile. Maybe by the time I’m 80?

Anyhow, the ph in our water is now up from 5.2 to 7.5. Much better for the boiler and the copper piping. This was preventive maintenance, something I seem to be doing a lot up here. Of course, our Andover house was a model so everything was new; though over 20 years, we did end up doing some preventive work and some replacements.

 

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Jefferson County, Judaism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Travel

In, but not of

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Imbolc                                                                    Valentine Moon

“Solitude” by Marc Chagall, 1933
“Solitude” by Marc Chagall, 1933

In, but not of. Yesterday at mussar, a spiritual/ethical system within the Jewish tradition, I had a complex moment. We were discussing truth and mercy, the relationship between them. To compare mercy and truth I defined mercy as suspension of judgment. Truth though is a sword and a judgment. If that’s correct, then not all truth is merciful. Rabbi Jamie started to dispute that, but had to leave for his daughter’s wisdom teeth extraction.

truth

In the conversation that followed afterward my use of the sword metaphor was identified as a Christian trope, “I come to not bring peace, but a sword.” I’ve been working very hard over the last year to bracket my mode of theological thinking while absorbing a Jewish style of thinking. This requires effort because though I abandoned Christianity over 30 years ago, my seminary education and professional life as a clergyman reinforced my already strong Judaeo/Christian enculturation. Christianity does still define much of how I think and feel about matters religious and secular.

While that’s obvious, I still felt a flush of embarrassment at being identified with a New Testament informed concept. That flush, as mussar teaches, is an important signal about where growth is necessary.

On the way back up to Shadow Mountain I described my situation to Kate as similar to traveling. “I love to go where the culture is very different from mine, where I’m a stranger. It helps me know my self.” Kate’s journey is one of a Jew deepening her own understanding, her own identity as part of a religious world. My journey is closer to travel, “It feels like I’m traveling on the inside.” In this case no geographic change is necessary for me to be a stranger.

travel

This inner travel exhilarates me, but it also confuses and, in a mild sense, scares me. I’m trying to gain wisdom and personal growth from Beth Evergreen while maintaining my own identity as a pagan. But, not only that. My life as a pagan is not divorced from my enculturation as a Christian. I’m a cultural Christian in many ways. That means I encounter many shocks to my inner world, shocks that wake me up, like a Zen koan, but that also and in the same instance disorient me.

Yaowarat
Yaowarat

It’s like being on Yaowarat Road in Bangkok on a weekend night. On Friday and Saturday night the sidewalks of Bangkok’s Chinatown, of which Yaowarat is the main street, fill up with small restaurants, often two tables, some chairs and a street vendor style kitchen with a wok, propane tank, utensils and a stack of plates and soup bowls. What food are they serving? I don’t know. I speak neither Thai nor Mandarin. Many people are there who do understand the food offerings, how to eat them, but I’m not one of them. I’m in, but not of the street life. Observing, yes, eager to learn, yes, but even after sampling some food and gaining some insight, I will go back to my hotel, a stranger traveling through.

I’m grateful to the folks at Beth Evergreen and Kate for putting up with my being present as a stranger and an inner traveler. A long journey, barely begun.

Mountains, Shadow Mountain

Sounds. And Silence.

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Imbolc                                                                    Valentine Moon

 

There are mountain sounds. The katabatic winds that flow from Mount Evans and its companions rush through the lodgepole pines, soughing and moaning as they head for the plains. In the fall during the elk rut the bugling of the elks, a strange and mournful cry echoes in the canyons. The swirling waters of snow fed mountain streams gurgle and gush their way over rocks and around corners. The cough of a mountain lion, the odd bark of the fox are not often heard, but they are distinctive.

Then, there is the antithesis. When snow falls, as it does right now, it muffles sound, brings silence in its wake. Quiet descends with the snowflakes. There are, too, those not infrequent moments in the forest when there is no wind, the streams flow by, no elks bugle, no birds are singing. The stolid presence of the lodgepoles and lower down the ponderosa, the aspen and the blue spruce highlight the steady, massive, soundless presence of upthrust rock.

All of these, and more, are the wonder of living among the Rockies.